NVIDIA Licenses PhysX SDK for Sony's PlayStation 3 Console

Today NVIDIA announced that its popular PhysX technology will be available to all registered Sony PlayStation 3 developers free of charge.

To quote: NVIDIA announced it has signed a tools and middleware license agreement with Sony that makes the binary version of the NVIDIA PhysX technology available to registered PS3 developers.

NVIDIA Corporation today announced that it has signed a tools and middleware license agreement for PLAYSTATION(R)3 (PS3(TM)) with Sony Computer Entertainment Inc (SCEI).

As a result, the binary version of the NVIDIA(R) PhysX(R) technology software development kit (SDK) is now available to registered PS3 developers for free download and use on the SCEI Developer Network.

The NVIDIA PhysX software development kit SDK consists of a full-featured API and robust physics engine, designed to give developers, animators, level designers, and artists unprecedented creative control over character and object physical interactions by allowing them to author and preview physics effects in real time.

The continued adoption of NVIDIA PhysX technology by the world's leading content developers is resulting in games that not only look as realistic as possible, but also provides gaming experiences where the world's literally come to life: environments become highly interactive with effects such as persistent debris, including shattered glass and weapons ammunition, trees that bend in the wind, and water that flows with body and force.

"NVIDIA is proud to support PLAYSTATION 3 as an approved middleware provider," said Tony Tamasi, senior vice president of content and technology at NVIDIA. "Games developed for the PLAYSTATION 3 using PhysX technology offer a more realistic and lifelike interaction between the games characters and other objects within the game. We look forward to the new games that will redefine reality for a new generation of gamers."

The PhysX technology source code SDKs for PS3 and all major gaming platforms are available for license directly from NVIDIA. For more information on licensing PhysX SDKs or NVIDIA PhysX technology, please visit: www.nvidia.com/physx.

All this will bring is software Physics, so it won't be as great as you think, and most games will probably not include it since it will take a toll on the graphics power of the PS3.

Yeah, it does take up a lot of the Reality synthesizers processing power (unless they can somehow find a way to divert it to the CPU). But in either way, it will allow for more of the "blowy uppy" kind of stuff. Mostly I think this would be useful for the action/FPS type games.

Yeah, it does take up a lot of the Reality synthesizers processing power (unless they can somehow find a way to divert it to the CPU). But in either way, it will allow for more of the "blowy uppy" kind of stuff. Mostly I think this would be useful for the action/FPS type games.

my thought was about get it working over cpu. graphics are the bottleneck here i know

I came back with some more info to share... I was really excited about this at first (because of all the wrong reasons) but now i'm still excited still!

First, let get something out: PhysX was available from the start on the Sony Console BUT NOT FREE!!! Developers had to choose between Havok or PhysX and both cost money to license.

Yeah PhysX is just a software library, but it will be run by the cell, unlikely the GPU (RSX is more of a 7 series GPU so it does not have that capability) and as you all know the Cell's CPU/SPU's great at working with small amounts of data!

If you remember there were some tests made by AGEIA (the developer of PhysX) that stated that PS3 had the power to run FULL Effects including Fluid Dynamics, but the XBox360 could not. This is not because the PS3 is more powerfull!!!! In some ways it is, in some ways it's not!
The different architecture is just working better for PhysX on the PS3 instead of Xbox 360. Only because Xbox is more PC like with it's 3 cores running at full speed the speed impact is greater instead of using specialised cores.

As a downside, all multiplatform titles will look the same as Xbox 360 is unlikely to use PhysX, only Sony exclusives should (and I believe they already) look a tad better!

Thank you for reading, I spent a lot of time trying to find out the truth behind this!

I came back with some more info to share... I was really excited about this at first (because of all the wrong reasons) but now i'm still excited still!

First, let get something out: PhysX was available from the start on the Sony Console BUT NOT FREE!!! Developers had to choose between Havok or PhysX and both cost money to license.

Yeah PhysX is just a software library, but it will be run by the cell, unlikely the GPU (RSX is more of a 7 series GPU so it does not have that capability) and as you all know the Cell's CPU/SPU's great at working with small amounts of data!

If you remember there were some tests made by AGEIA (the developer of PhysX) that stated that PS3 had the power to run FULL Effects including Fluid Dynamics, but the XBox360 could not. This is not because the PS3 is more powerfull!!!! In some ways it is, in some ways it's not!
The different architecture is just working better for PhysX on the PS3 instead of Xbox 360. Only because Xbox is more PC like with it's 3 cores running at full speed the speed impact is greater instead of using specialised cores.

As a downside, all multiplatform titles will look the same as Xbox 360 is unlikely to use PhysX, only Sony exclusives should (and I believe they already) look a tad better!

Thank you for reading, I spent a lot of time trying to find out the truth behind this!

If you want to see Software Physics in action look at Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, this uses three physics engines; Havok, Digital Molecular Matter by Pixelux Entertainment, and Euphoria by NaturalMotion, if you haven't played the game yet you will be blown away.